With the participation of Putin…an exceptional BRICS summit on Gaza

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, in his capacity as head of the BRICS group, called for “an extraordinary joint meeting” on the situation in Gaza on Tuesday at 12:00 GMT.

The Kremlin, for its part, announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin would participate in the meeting. He said in a statement, “On November 21, the Russian President will participate in an extraordinary BRICS summit (via video technology) to discuss the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

After the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, the Kremlin called for a ceasefire, stressing that the only way to achieve lasting peace in the Middle East is to establish a Palestinian state.

Putin held the United States responsible for the bloody conflict, and accused it of monopolizing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for years without succeeding in finding solutions.

The President of South Africa, which on Friday, along with four other countries, requested the International Criminal Court to conduct an investigation into the current war, will open this meeting, in which each country present is scheduled to have a speech, according to a presidential statement.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres will also attend the meeting, at the end of which the leaders are expected to adopt a “joint statement on the situation in the Middle East, especially in Gaza.”

The South African government announced in early November that it had summoned its diplomats in Israel for consultations, expressing its “concern” about the “atrocities” committed by Israel in Gaza.

Pretoria has long been a fierce defender of the Palestinian cause, which the ruling African National Congress party often links to its struggle against apartheid.